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Claireteetay

I found this unit very enjoyable in learning new aspects of media, and progressing experience I already know about the concept.

Look listen and analyze really helped my critical evaluation of movies. This aspect broke up a film scene by watching visually, listening to audio, and then putting both together – by doing this it allowed you to critically evaluate part for part on technical concepts of the movie scene.

The second part allowed me to delve further into the production facts of the movie scene I analyzed. I found some interesting notions about the production. All the production was filmed all on location, which I found really strange as most filming is equally location and in a studios – so it tells me a lot about recording the audio. I found this assignment very interesting.

The video assignment was very fun to conduct. Even know it was in preparation to the next unit assignment, the preparation work I made for this assignment was very enthusiastic about doing. I chose to write up the post production prep for one of the video assignments because it appealed to me most of all – I harbored experience in this, and I know what personal prep to take in order to get the most informative and organized post production planning. So I really enjoyed doing this because its something I know most in my area of media experience.

Overall I found this unit very informative – I learned new skills and furthered my experience in technical film analyses, which will benefit me now in my further studies of media production. Each assignment I was very enthusiastic to do because video editing and planning is something im most strongest at. However I feel I should have given myself more time on the video assignment, I do enjoy creating audio very much – but chose to do the post production planning instead because at the time preferred creating this, however next time I would branch out of my experience and try an activity I am not as familiar with, but however can develop more skill in.

Recreate (or make your own!) scene from a horror movie. Whether you recreate the “Hereee’s Johnny!” scene from The Shining or create a new idea all together is up to you.

The scene i have created in my head would be set in a dark location by a forrest, the shot begins outside depicting a large and quite abandoned house. A girl inside is home alone, you can hear thunder outside. the girl walks into her room and hears movements downstairs. she walks downstairs to find the source of the sound. it leads her to a fridge where there is blood dropping from. she opens it and finds nothing – a false scare. as she shuts the fridge door, behind the door reveals a scary looking character in which stabs her.

first pre production is most important. what i would need to do is firstly write the script, plus stage direction with notes of camera shots. with this i will create a story board and visually create the scenes – by doing this i can note down what camera shots will be used. as this is a horror scene set in the dark, lighting is very important – so i would create a floor plan placing the lighting on each scene – how bright the lighting will be and where it will be angled at to outline a certain object or person. for location would have to decide if use own house, or with much research and persuasion, an abandoned house would be most practical. if this was succeeded i would then create a risk assessment outlining what could go wrong, the risks to the set and to the actors – these are put in place to plan ahead to assure all actors and equipment is safe throughout the filming. finally once all post planning is complete, props will have to be considered – what budget the production is and how much money can go into putting together the special effects. once this is all done i will be ready to film.

Ive explained briefly before hand in Unit 9 when analysing the camera shots and audio, there were easy technical clues that prompted me to identify the genre by a small movie scene.

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“Crime (gangster) films are developed around the sinister actions of criminals or mobsters, particularly bankrobbers, underworld figures, or ruthless hoodlums who operate outside the law, stealing and murdering their way through life.”

we can identify the movie Heat to underly the sub genre of crime/gangster films – most scenes i have analysed elicit a sinister atmosphere through the use of sister dark sound track. most camera shots are very close up to the characters faces to prompt the audience to read their serious facial expressions. all camera shot and audio cues gives us clues to what genre this film is.

in this scene below we follow Robert De Niros character – the camera follows the character on steadicam following him walking – the shot is smooth, almost majestic like, giving the initial reference to De Niro like a shark – having smooth silent movements through the hotel scene.

1) “Principal photography for Heat lasted 107 days. All of the shooting was done on location, Mann deciding not to use a soundstage.”

It seems very strange that all filming was shot primarily on location – in most high budgeted films and TV shows are now predominantly filmed in a studios – it allows better quality of setting and audio. the fact that Mann decided to not use a sound stage probably really affected the quality of the audio recording – in Sound stage the walls are padded to absorb the best audio.

Just into the first 10 seconds of the opening scene, you can already identify the genre through the use of camera technique. the scene begins following an over the shoulder shot, set up of a steady cam. the shot is very close up, only showing half of the character shoulder and not identifying the rest of the body – this creates a mysterious aspect. The lighting is dark and the camera still follows the back of an unknown character, we get the feeling of the scene being risky and dangerous through the mysterious character.

The following conversation scene tells us also a lot about the characters. usually a conversation scene is filmed with an over the shoulder shot from both angles to elicit both parties of the conversation – however the style of the cutting in a normal conversation scene is quite fast. in this scene, the camera cuts very slow of each character talking – its creates the effect that both characters talk very slow to each other – this tells us that the characters seem very powerful and dominant. as the conversation carries, the shots start from a mid shot and gradually end in close up of the characters face – without hearing the content of the conversation, we can tell by the camera shots the conversation appears to become more dramatic as we are focussed very carefully on the characters facial expressions.

Analyse the audio track

Both characters have very different personalities judging by the dialogue – one character is very forward and personal, the other has a mellow dramatic tone to his voice and speaks in small slow sentences – it gives us the idea that this character is feeling probably threatened and is with holding information the other character wants to know. its helps us again judge the genre of the scene by the native accents both characters have – very New Yorker accents, with a hint of italian – we associate with New York gangsters.

Put it all together

You can only really understand properly what the scene entails now that both audio and visual is put together. by associating what voice is from what character, it helps us understand the context of the narrative. preferably two characters of different level of dominants the way camera favours one more than the other, talking about a risky situation. you really can only get the full perspective with both elements.

At the end of this Unit, I am feeling some what impressed. Photography has never been my strongest point. I am never able to see through photography and capture pictures with meaning. However, this Unit has taught me such thing of point the camera and shooting with meaning – finding a story behind each photo. I really enjoyed the task PhotoBlitzing, where we were given titles and had to photography objects that related to these titles. My favourite photo was ‘something that creates openning’ – I chose to photograph a book. I love reading and felt books open you to a completely different world. Thus being complimented on my set of photographs really gave me motivation and inspiration to further photography on.

I chose to do this assignment in my own home – the experience was interesting, it tested my imagination to find everyday objects and relate them the photos specifications. these 5 photos ive chosen worked for me the best, they fit the specifcation most relavant and were my favourite. The photo i found most inventive was the ‘find something that expresses human emotion’ – i chose champagne – we relate this alcohol drink the celebration.

Create Depth: Look for ways to add dimension of visual depth in your 2 dimensional images- play with foreground, lines, use of wide angle lenses, use of dark backgrounds

to create a photo with perception, its needs to be given depth – and to achieve this, objects with an obvious curve allows the picture to have some depth by following the curvature of the objects structure – and to elicit this more by giving it dimension, by focusing on the part most frontal and foreground, slightly blurs the background, thus creating the 3D effect.

Expose for Aesthetics Learn how to use aperture, shutter speed, iso to control the image- what the effects of these all play on depth of field, motion freeze vs blurring. For fixed lens camera/mobile, at least understand what the level of light means for your photos (why are those low light photos are blurry?)

altering more light to hit the intended primary objects in the photos allowed the picture to become to aesthetically pleasing, the gold was enhanced creating a value to the object, and the shadow cast in the background allowed the foreground to predominantly stand out.

Change My Perspective By Changing Yours: Find different and unique points of view. Look down, up, lay down on the ground, anything different from your normal view of the world at head height. Seek perspectives of lines.

from angling the camera more to the left of the primary objects and point the lens to look down the right created a very beautiful depth of the clock hand – the different perspective was more aesthetically effective than a usual forward point shoot.